Change-up your breakfast and start your day the right way
There’s good reason it’s often called ‘the most important meal of the day’ as getting in a healthy breakfast every day has many benefits! Eating breakfast kickstarts your metabolism, helping you burn calories and encouraging healthy eating throughout the day.
Following a period of fasting while you’re asleep, a healthy balanced breakfast balances glucose levels and boosts energy. Long-term, breakfast promotes heart, brain, and overall health. Changing-up and eating a good brekkie helps your ability to focus, reason and process information throughout the day.
Whip up a breakfast worth getting out of bed for and start your day the right way with our tips below!
Set up your day for success with porridge
Done right, porridge can set you up for the day and keep you satisfied until lunch. Here’s how to Change-up your porridge so that it’s more filling, delicious and satisfying…
Make your porridge with milk (or a non-dairy alternative like Oato!) rather than water to make oats creamier and pack in some early protein. You can also reduce plastic waste at the beginning of your day by going for glass-bottled milk.
Use rolled oats, such as Thatchers rolled porridge oats, instead of packaged instant porridge – you’re also keeping down single-use plastic this way!
To create a more nutritious and satisfying oatmeal bowl, we have three delicious recipes from the Get Cooking section of our website:
Date, coconut, cinnamon and pecan porridge: adding healthy fats such as nuts and seeds will keep you satisfied for longer, plus they taste delicious alongside fruits.
Crunchy apple and cinnamon porridge: adding spices to your porridge is an easy way to transform plain porridge into one that’s full of flavour!
Brûléed banana porridge: add a touch of luxury to your oats by sprinkling sliced banana with brown sugar and popping them under the grill until the sugar forms a crunchy crystallized top.
Stick to whole foods
When breaking your fast, the best way to set up your day for success and feel satiated is by eating foods in their most natural form possible.
Many processed breakfasts such as supermarket-bought cereals list sugar as the second or third ingredient and have limited nutritional content. Starting the day with processed high-sugar breakfast cereal will spike your blood sugar and insulin levels, which will likely lead to a blood sugar crash a few hours later. To avoid a potential midday sugar crash that will have you reaching for more high-sugar snacks, start your day off with a balanced meal made up of protein, carbs, healthy fats and fibre. Among our few quick tips are cooking oats with milk versus water, adding a healthy protein to every morning meal such as eggs, nuts or seeds and, finally, change-up highly processed breakfast foods such as sugary cereal and white bread for wholegrain alternatives.
Healthy breakfasts on the go
Not hungry in the morning? Pushed for time? Both are common reasons for skipping breakfast that can have negative knock-on effects. Skipping breakfast tells your body to conserve calories and the short-term consequences kick in about eight hours later – you may be fatigued, have brain fog and increase the likelihood that you will overeat. In the long term, regularly skipping breakfast increases stress and inflammatory hormones and increases cholesterol and blood pressure.
So, if you’re simply not hungry in the morning, an easy tip to jump-start your appetite is to drink a small glass of fruit juice or eat a teaspoon of honey or some other quick-acting sugar when you wake up. This kickstarts your metabolism, telling your body to send a hunger signal within 20-30 minutes, at which point you have enough appetite to eat a hearty breakfast.
If you’re jumping out of bed to go to work and skipping breakfast, an easy way to remedy this is by making your breakfast the night before, making on-the-go breakfasts or batch preparing your breakfast. An essential recipe for days when you need breakfast on the go, our granola bar recipe is crammed with vitamin boosting berries and cherries. You can also try our porridge recipes above without any actual cooking to make ready-to-eat overnight oats! Instead of cooking the oats on the stove or in the microwave, simply soak the raw oats in milk overnight in the fridge for a delicious and convenient breakfast the next morning.
Explore our range of healthy breakfast foods by clicking here!
